Possessions Stolen and otherwise
by Ice Goliath
Summary: AU somewhere in the middle of season one. The ship is immobile. With no evil empire to challenge for a while, do Legends do to keep themselves from getting bored? Len needs a disturbance and a plan whilst an injured Mick wants to stay in the cabin where all their possessions remind him of who they are. They can't completely be good guys, somewhere in the middle is mor
1. Chapter 1

Possessions: Stolen and otherwise

The bridge of the Waverider was sweltering. An oppressive heavy heat that seemed to only be noticed by one person and he was getting bored. When they'd first climbed on board the ship, Len had spent much of his time memorising the patterns of the team, their daily routine. Or where the electrics were; what to turn off or on in some cases.

After he'd exhausted all possible relevant observations, he'd taken to hiding in the cargo hold between jobs, fiddling with the cold gun he already knew back to front and inside out. Mick would join him if he was in the right mood, usually trying to get the flame from the heat gun to exceed maximum, tapping his feet to the beat of 80's metal playing quietly in the background.

Months had passed since that point, but time on the ship was of no consequence and it made for a pretty boring existence in his opinion. This Legends gig wasn't all thievery and saving the world. Stealing Rip's whisky and hiding it, no longer had the same allure it once did. Even the ranting and empty threats of being dropped off in the time stream had gotten tiresome.

At that particular moment, they were stagnating in one position with nowhere to go. The air motionless, just like the tin can they had been travelling in, which was floating listlessly in the time He could still feel the cracked plastic in his fingers. Looking stream. Jax and Stein were on it, but it was taking time and the rest of them were left twiddling their thumbs.

Len hung back at the edge of the cockpit, resting against the solid walls, leafing through pages of a dog eared copy of ''The Art of War' like he was trying to memorise it. Facial expression indecipherable by anyone who looked over, his breathing out uncomfortably deep, as if trying to blow the walls further away. A distraction was required. Right now, he would give anything for some sort of disturbance.

Raymond, Kendra, Sara and Rip had gathered around Gideon, watching a hologram of the future, their bodies too close and claustrophobic. They had been running imaginary scenarios for hours, determined that unlike Len, they would not give in to the tedium of being stuck in the time stream with nothing of consequence to do. From his position, he could see that all the towers in the city were still standing, but there were no people.

"They all seemed to have vanished." Kendra said softly

"Not vanished. Shrunk." relayed Rip.

The viewers of the scenario, glared at Raymond. Len hoped that someone would say something, give in to the monotony of it all. Throw a punch, something.

"How would we solve this problem?"

Rip took back control of the room, leaving Len feeling more than mildly disappointed.

He closed the book, tucking it under one arm and examined his nails, all the time listening to their babbling and finding that it was of no interest to him. After what felt like decades, he retreated from the room, leaving it to the rest of the team to figure it out the problem. If you could call it that.

Black boots hit the metal corridor floor at an even pace, coming to a stop in front of his cabin's ID plate. The infrared passed over his palm and the door flew open, a gentle breeze of the air con fluttered against his skin. He padded automatically across the room, almost lovingly straightening the painting next to the door that tilted to the left, pausing to set the book on a towering book case. His mouth curved into a smile with a glimmer of satisfaction. All the possessions, stolen and otherwise gave the cabin an air of domesticity. It was no longer a room, but a home.

Len fell onto the bed at the edge of the room face first, a muted scent of sweat and charcoal drifting under his nose. After a while he sluggishly rolled over to face the ceiling, arms stretching out wide on the grey sheets. When he closed his eyes, memorised blueprints of the Central City museum danced behind them. They would be prepared when they got back to 2016, he didn't appreciate surprises. Mick often called him out on his obsessive research, but how many times had it got them out of trouble? Planning a heist in the future was not an immediate disturbance, but it would have to do and there was something salaciously erotic about the thought of committing an act of grand larceny. As he was on the verge of doing something about it, a faint acrid smell and the door whooshing open jolted his senses. The blueprints vanished and he swore under his breath as the door shut and smell came closer. The only heat he didn't mind.

"Don't tell me. The other guy looks worse" He drawled, not bothering to move or open his eyes.

The answer, a disapproving grunt.

He felt the bed dip by his feet, feeling a surge of warmth against his toes, then heard the clunk of heavy boots followed by goggles as they hit the floor.

"How was training, Mick?"

He lazily opened one eye and sat up.

"You don't wanna know" Mick groaned, leaning forwards so that his elbows were resting on his knees, fingers linked tightly and held behind his head.

Len paused, awaiting his partner's customary display of agitation. He frowned when it didn't arrive, gaze shifting to survey the damage. Singed cotton and shredded leather revealed bruised and burnt skin around his ribs and shoulders, with three recent wounds puckered and shiny in amongst the blue and black. Len crawled up the bed, sitting far enough away to not cause discomfort, but close enough for Mick to know he was there.

"I wouldn't have asked if I didn't." He drawled, before dropping a kiss on the top of the other man's head. "What's got you in a snit?"

"Fireballs. Firestorm don't pull their punches."

"Would you want them to?"

Len quirked his head as he observed the way his partner twisted as he straightened.

"Landed badly"

A grudging admission. Len raised an eyebrow, waiting for further response. He was nothing if not patient in his quest to get to the truth. Unlike him, Mick was a terrible liar and he'd got to understand over the years there was no point hiding anything, because it was going to get found out eventually.

"Busted a rib."

A pause, in expectation of further injuries.

"Dislocated left shoulder. Put it back. Hurts like a bitch." Mick ground out obligingly.

"Aren't you supposed to get out of the way?" He paused for a reaction, but got none. "Why didn't you see Gideon?"

"Not letting that pile of wires touch me" His tone petulant. The second question getting more of a reaction than Len anticipated. "Not gonna have a repeat of last time."

Len's forehead creased in concern. Mick ignored the look and grunted again as he leant back, letting Len squish up behind him and wrap his arms around his neck. They sat like a totem, breathing in the charred smell and the stillness. A semblance of an idea began to slowly form in Len's mind, a perfect distraction that would solve both their predicaments. It could go one of two ways, depending on Mick's desire to be belligerent and irritable for the rest of the night, but that unpredictability made it all the more fun.

He smirked lazily to himself, then backed off, rolling off the side of the bed. Mick growled at the disappearance, a rumble that was ignored.

"You stink."

Mick's eyes narrowed at the remark and opened his mouth to retort, but closed it again as he watched Len languidly remove his t-shirt as he wandered in the direction of the bathroom.

"Are you coming or not?"

Mick leapt off the bed like he hadn't just spent hours sparring with an amalgamated science experiment.


	2. Chapter 2

The air was thick, making it hard to breathe.

Mick was usually a heavy sleeper, but that night he lay on his side, facing the centre of the room, his left shoulder still pulsing with discomfort. He grimaced slightly, trying to avoid any movement to wake up the man lying beside him.

He would not go to that pile of wires. She would not have the satisfaction. Wrenching his shoulder back in line in without painkillers was less aggravating that getting an 'I told you so' about defence tactics from the obnoxious AI or his friends. Would he call them that? Sara maybe. She could handle herself. The rest? He flicked through memories. Maybe they were starting to grow on him. Very slowly.

The room had taken on a muted glow from the whatever was going on outside the window, he really couldn't be bothered to raise his head and suffer pain to take a look. He knew it was probably the same thing that had been out there for the past week. The kid and the old man should have been trying to fix the ship rather than doing their best to take him out.

The vibrations of the ship were something he'd started to associate with going somewhere to cause mayhem of some sort, maybe to set fire to something. He had been feeling compressed without them. Tense and overstrung. Desperate to burn something. But, right at that moment he was bone tired and resigned to the situation. The option that appealed to him was to lie in bed and eat cake until his arm felt better or they could cause trouble in the past again. Maybe Len would like to join him for a while and complain about cake crumbs.

The glow flickered in the room, sporadically lighting up their collection of possessions. Stolen and otherwise. They didn't need to completely play hero. something in the middle was more their style.

Mick's tired eyes focused on the books. A testament to Len's research and not liking surprises. A floor to ceiling bookcase which was so full that, it should be making the Waverider list slightly to the side. History books mostly. Research for meticulous planning, or not in some cases. Art, also the odd chemistry and mechanical ones slid in there for good measure, the ones that he preferred to flick through. Just because he relied on physical strength, didn't mean that he didn't like to read. No fiction though. Unlike the safe houses. Len had always told Lisa that is was important to read, to imagine all possibilities. They'd always had books in untidy piles all over the place. Science fiction mostly. None here though. Their lives didn't need any more of that.

The shadow of the bookcase concealed their modest armoury. Heat and cold guns and a couple of knives. Inanimate objects that had slowly changed purpose from creating anarchy to saving people, much to his annoyance. They had a certain undesirable reputation to maintain, a criminal empire to build.

A dainty gold watch for Lisa lay on a top of a chest of drawers. She would hate to have missed out on a souvenir and Len spoilt his baby sister. 2.30am in 1953. They'd raided a bank vault, out of boredom and opportunity. The pile of safety deposit boxes getting bigger, the room getting colder as Len froze the locks and pocketed jewellery. Mick had watched from the door, heat gun ready to fire at anyone who interfered, ignoring all suggestions to chill out.

Next to the watch was their most recent acquisition. A black stone statue of Hermes, the Greek god of thieves, liberated from a museum in New Greece in 2115. Len liked the challenge of lifting a rare artefact. That one was a bit more of a challenge. Days of asking Gideon questions to get information, planning and keeping secrets. They'd busted in all Mission Impossible and grabbed the statue. Security had had more firepower than expected. Len took laser fire to the leg, he'd got hit once in the shoulder and twice in the back as he tried to get them both out. Two minutes in the med bay and a completely coincidental attack by a band of time pirates, when he was so doped up he couldn't think straight, let alone move; had seen off any urge to steal anything for a while. They were not getting any younger and he had the scars to prove it.

The glow reflected off a stack of gold frames where they leant up against each other, partially blocking the entrance to the bathroom. Paintings of random people that Len had stolen from a house in 1793, just to get hold of one called 'Love Songs and Matches'; for no reason other than Mick seeing it in a museum once and liking the title. The painting itself hung on the wall by the door, in pride of place. A boy with a dog and a basket of homemade matches, selling music. By a guy called John Russell circa. 1745-1806, he was told.

Always know what you're stealing. One of Len's obnoxious laws that that been drummed into him over the decades.

In the corner stood Mick's favourite piece. A flame red juke box he'd lifted from a diner in the 70's, just to spite Len when he wouldn't let him set fire to anything on a mission. The dent in the bottom was from loading it into the back of a pick up and speeding away as fast as the piece of shit would go. Len had grudgingly helped of course, then went nuts at deviating from his plan and sulked for a few hours; before returning with a bottle of whisky and an arm full of small black discs.

Mick could practically see Len's ghosted image leaning against the door frame taking a slug from the bottle, calculating what to do next, before he'd dropped the discs on the floor, the action accompanied by a 'what are you going to do about it' smirk. Smug bastard. He remembered picking up a disc, reading the title and receiving some unwelcome warm fuzzy memories, before he'd angrily snapped it in half. Then he'd kicked Len out of their cabin until he apologised. Slamming the door in his face had felt real good.

In hindsight, Mick knew that in the heat of the moment, he hadn't really thought his plan through properly and had forgotten take into account that in his opinion, Len, with his many positive qualities could also be cold-blooded, unreasonable and quite unstable. But, at the same time he'd been consumed by a burning desire to win and that for once Len would be to one to concede first. He could still feel the cracked plastic in his fingers.

For days after that, he'd left the room when his partner walked in, avoided any conversations and snarled at his very presence in the universe and time itself. Len responded to this by raising an eyebrow and looking significantly unfazed. It had got extremely irritating. After a week, he'd punched Boy Scout in the face for asking him whether he wanted cake and by that point, the team didn't want to take him on missions anymore. Something about him being moody and many other associated words, so Sara and Rip had benched him until they made up. Not Len, just him.

Mick felt a roar of anger at the memory, a flood of resentment aimed at Len for causing the problem in the first place and the reminder of the trickle of blood from his knuckles after he attacked the wall for being in the right place at the right time, because his lighter had mysteriously disappeared, so he couldn't burn anything. He extended his foot to kick Len in the shin in revenge, but thought better of it. You don't wake Len up, if you want to stay attached to the mortal coil.

He'd taken refuge in the cargo bay after being benched, stating sharply that he needed to repair a component of the heat gun. Feet on a crate, a bottle of beer next to the gun, chair leant back on two legs, music playing. Perfect. Except for the later appearance of Len, who'd drifted in and out of his peripheral vision for a while, doing stuff he'd pretended not to notice. This was until a lighter was smacked down on the crate with a clang, making his chair land on four legs with a jarring jolt. Focused on the unexpected pain, he'd completely ignored Len's looming shadow and the increasingly irritated presence, not bothering to answer with words, just a snarl.

"I thought you might like to indulge me in a little game"

Len's voice had taken on a hypnotic quality, which usually meant he was up to something.

After finishing the beer really slowly, he'd grabbed the lighter. It was heavy. Highly polished silver at an educated guess. It had his name on it, engraved with embossed flames. He'd pulled a wide triumphant smirk that was quickly replaced with one of apathy, with an underlying hint of curiosity as to how the full apology would play out. Obviously pissed by his blatant lack of enthusiasm, Len had stomped across the room -not waiting for him to follow- come to an abrupt halt next to some metal crates and gestured to a steel drum from which an example of the contents was flamboyantly lifted out with his thumb and forefinger. Drama queen. Leaning closer he'd frowned at the name on the record, -Captain and Tenille. Of course it was- and pulled most ignorant and questioning face he could muster, causing Len's mouth to twitch slightly. It was hard to know whether it was a smile or if the whole venture was going to implode in an argument and the game they were playing would be over before it had even started.

"So, what's the game?"

"How long will take them to find the fire" Len drawled.

The words were accompanied by a "what are you going to about it" smirk.

The one that over the years Mick had learnt meant your move. His choice. Walk away and carry on or forgive and forget, until the next time. He'd been really bored sleeping or not sleeping by himself, so felt that the son of a bitch didn't have to work for it, just this once. He'd growled in the tone that Len would understand as 'we're alright', as his partner dropped the little black disc into the drum.

"Light them up"

"Yes, Boss"

With a maniacal grin, he'd flicked it open, igniting the contents of the drum with flourish.

Mick could feel the temperature of his hands raise as he lay in bed, a reminder of holding that small, but powerful object and what he could do with it if he chose to. A heat gun was fun, but sometimes nothing beat a lighter. He had to give Len his dues, he knew how to apologise. He'd had enough practice. The flames back then were beautiful, but the smell was revolting. They'd bolted through the cargo bay doors and escaped into the darkness of the 70's, returning a few hours later to an icy reception; steaming drunk with a few wallets and a mysterious set of keys.

It had been worth it. They're bad guys, it's what they do. It had taken three minutes and thirty five seconds for the rest of the team to find and extinguish the fire. A new record. The memory left him with a soppy half smile that he wiped off his face as soon as he noticed it.

"I can hear you thinking. Go to sleep." murmured a voice with sleepy affection.

Mick felt cold toes prodding his feet as Len shuffle closer, flinging his arm over his chest. He winced at the impact to his ribs, forgetting it soon after when he felt fingers gently gracing the scars on his right arm and a kiss between his shoulder blades.

"Thinking about my lighter" Mick said gruffly

"What a surprise" A tired drawl

"And the juke box"

In the ensuing silence, Mick noticed the vibrations of the ship. He felt his body relax, turning to glance out the window for signs of movement, then his eyes sparked with annoyance. He hated being ignored.

"I won that argument though" The petulance from earlier returning. "I let you apologise"

"Of course you did. Now, go to sleep" came the murmur again, breath hot on the back of his neck.

The vibration made his spine tingle and Len knew it. The 'I've got what I wanted and there's nothing you can do about it' smirk would no doubt be plastered on his partner's face.

The smile came back, but this time it remained. They were a team. A package deal. Not one without the other. And they were doing fine.


End file.
